The following is an excerpt from a U.S. Government REPORT summarizing various state poor laws in 1904. .
Click on the link above for more information.

LOCAL NOTES:

The Colorado GenWeb Project has published a history of the "Denver
Farm."

COGenWeb County Coordinator, Leona L. Gustafson, explains:
To fully understand what's going on here--both
Denver and Adams County were part of Arapahoe County until 1902. While it
was part of Arapahoe County, Denver was the county seat. When it
split off it became "The City & County of Denver" (official name),
but it did retain jurisdiction over some parts of the general area that were
outside the new county. The Poor Farm remained under the jurisdiction of
The City & County of Denver even though it was actually in Adams
County.

"The Foothills Inquirer: Quarterly of Foothills Genealogical Society
of Colorado, Inc." Volume 8, Number 1 (February, 1988) contains the 1909-10
Report of the Poor for Clear Creek County. (This particular report does
contain a list of names which is not a list of poorhouse residents, but of
people who received "outdoor" relief in their own community.)
The article states: The following records are available at the Colorado
State Archives as part of the Secretary of State papers in box # 9694. Some
counties did not file and many other filings contain statistics only. The report
was "to be made to the Secretary of State immediately after the 30th of
November each year."

"Someone mentioned to me that she had seen a record book from the El
Paso County Poor Farm on display [at the Bear Creek Nature Center?] in
Colorado Springs. The nature center was torched last year, and this contact
mentioned this to me before the fire, so I don't know if it survived."

Published in 1982 by "Foothills Genealogical Society of
Colorado Inc." (located in Lakewood, Jefferson County, just west of
Denver); price. $7.00 plus P/H at PO Box 150382, Lakewood CO
80215-0382

This
is a delightful book! Twenty pages of photocopied original
hand-written poorhouse records. (No transcription--so readers have
to figure out what the old-time handwriting says!) These are monthly
reports of expenditures for the poor--both in and out of the poorhouse.
It gives names of people who submitted bills (i.e. vendors--for
expenditures on everything from groceries and coal to salaries for
poorhouse employees) and those poor on whose behalf the funds were
spent. Finally a 20 page typed index of all names is provided.Great Reading!
--The Poorhouse Lady

"The Poorhouse Listing in the Federal
Census for 1930 Colorado, La Plata County,
may be found in Animas Town-precinct 5, ED 34-12, Pg 6A (image 12 0f 12 images
on Ancestry.com). At top of page is written "La Plata County Home,
formerly called County Poor Farm. Only about 20 inmates there"
Laura Hilton laurahilton@nctimes.net

We are hoping to build this base of information about poorhouses in COLORADO
through the helpful participation of readers. All are requested to submit items of interest by sending e-mail
to The Poorhouse Lady.